1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of importing and exporting directory and calendar information to and from personal information management computer applications.
2. Related Art
As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of computer systems have emerged. One of the new categories of computer systems is the xe2x80x9cpalmtop xe2x80x9d computer system. A palmtop computer system is a computer that is small enough to be held in the hand of a user and can therefore be xe2x80x9cpalm-sized. xe2x80x9d Most palmtop computer systems are used to implement various personal information management (PIM) applications such as an address book, a daily organizer, scheduling calendar, and electronic notepads, to name a few. Palmtop computers with PIM software have been known as Personal Digital Assistants (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cPDAsxe2x80x9d).
Furthermore, the functionality of a computer system or other type of electronic system or device is dramatically enhanced by coupling these stand-alone devices together in order to form a networking environment. Within a networking environment, users may readily exchange files, share information stored on a common database, pool resources, and communicate via electronic mail (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9ce-mailxe2x80x9d) and via video teleconferencing. Further, computers or other types of electronic devices which are coupled to the Internet provide their users access to data and information from all over the world.
The efficient exchange of personal information found in various electronic media into and out of personal information management (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cPIMxe2x80x9d) applications in computer systems, including PDAs, has been a challenge. Personal information including directory and calendar information, such as dates and times of events, meetings and classes, etc., can be found in text form in various electronic media (such as e-mail messages and Internet web sites) as well as within various PIM applications. The transfer of directory and calendar information of one application to corresponding PIM applications and the export of these types of information has heretofore been typically accomplished by manually re-typing the particular information into the specific PIM application.
Problems are involved with manually re-typing directory and calendar textual information into particular PIM applications. For one, this method is annoying and error prone because the user must cycle back and forth between the screen that displays the desired information and the input screen for the particular PIM application. To minimize error, the user may cycle back and forth at each field of entry: name, company name, work address, home address, work phone, home phone, etc. Not only is this time consuming, but the introduction of human error cannot be discounted.
Another and still time consuming method uses a computer operating system""s drag/drop technique to transfer unformatted textual information to a text field of a particular PIM application. For example, to enter directory information found in an e-mail message, a user would carefully highlight by dragging over a particular field of information (e.g., name, company name, work address, home address, work phone, home phone, etc.), open the input screen of the PIM application, and then drop the information into the specific input field. This method is still time consuming and annoying as there is a need to separately cycle back and forth at each particular field of entry. Further, this method is not without error as incomplete and improper textual information that is highlighted is indiscriminately inputted into the specific input field of the PIM application.
Automatic transfer and entry of directory and calendar entries to and from a user""s PIM applications previously could only be accomplished between two identically formatted PIM applications. For example, an entry within a first user""s specific PIM application could only be transferred to an identical PIM application associated with a second user. No transfer of the information would occur if the second user had a differently formatted PIM application, and the second user must revert to manually re-typing the information into the PIM application.
Furthermore, directory and calendar information found in various electronic media such as e-mail or Internet web sites in text form is usually not of the same format as a user""s corresponding directory and calendar application. Thus, without manually entering the information, a user could not transfer and enter the information into the corresponding directory and calendar applications from these media.
It would be advantageous to provide a more efficient method and system for importing and exporting directory and calendar information between applications.
Accordingly, a method and system for importing and exporting selected directory and calendar information of a first format found in various electronic media to and from personal information management computer applications of a second format is described.
The present invention provides these advantages and others not specifically mentioned above but described in the sections to follow. Specifically, the present invention discloses a method and system for importing directory and calendar information that is structured in standardized vCard and vCalendar formats from a first application to corresponding electronic address book and calendar applications via clipboard and automatic translator applications. The invention includes an automatic translator that takes the standardized information from the clipboard application and translates the vCard and vCalendar information into a format that is native to the corresponding target applications, e.g., electronic address book and calendar applications. Additionally, the present invention discloses a method and system for exporting directory and calendar information by translating record entries from the databases of the address book and calendar applications of particular native formats to corresponding standardized vCard and vCalendar formats and exporting the standardized information via electronic mail.
In one embodiment, in an electronic device, the method and system of importing directory information in a vCard format and calendar information in a vCalendar format into corresponding personal information management applications comprises the following steps: capturing within a displayed screen of an application such as electronic mail a block of information that includes the standardized vCard and vCalendar information; transferring the captured information to a support application resident on the electronic device such as clipboard that is an operating system tool available to a variety of applications, which is capable of supporting the aforementioned variety of applications and capable of providing interface between the aforementioned variety of applications; automatically extracting the vCard and vCalendar information; automatically translating the information structured in vCard and vCalendar formats to a second format that is native to the corresponding address book and calendar applications; and automatically storing the translated directory and calendar information as a record in the databases of the corresponding address book and calendar applications.